Winter

by Rod Rees

  “Yeah, that’s right. Like wot the Frogs in the Quartier Chaud ’ave.”

  “Ah . . . a soirée,” exclaimed Vanka as the penny dropped. The linguistic ability of all Anglos was appalling; they were famous for it . . . or actually for their lack of it. They were the only Demi-Mondians who couldn’t speak all five of the world’s languages. The rumor was they had never really mastered English.

  “Yeah, dat’s wot I said: a sorry,” said Burlesque, proving the rumor correct. “A better class of people come to sorries, nice people who are dead keen on speaking wiv their loved ones wot inhabit the ovver side.”

  Vanka concluded that Burlesque didn’t see the irony involved with anyone being “dead keen” to attend a séance.

  “You’re a Licensed Physicalist, Wanker, you’re an occultist, so I wos wondering . . .”

  So that was why Burlesque had been so pleasant. But when Vanka thought about it, it wasn’t that bad an idea.

  Since the ending of the Troubles, and thanks to Crowley’s enthusiastic promotion of UnFunDaMentalism, attending séances had become very fashionable in the ForthRight. Business for Vanka—pre-Skobelev, that is—had been booming. Everyone, it seemed, wished to commune with the dead, and as the fighting during the Troubles had been so ferocious—or so Vanka had heard; he’d made a point of staying as far from the front line as possible—there were a great many dead to commune with. Not that Vanka believed in a life after death. Rather he believed in life before death . . . a luxurious and comfortable life before death.

  Spiritualism—Faux-Spiritualism; Vanka was nothing if not a realist—provided him with a handsome income. To put it at its most blunt, Vanka ran séances the true purpose of which was not so much to contact the dead, but rather to fleece widows out of their fortunes and, whenever possible, out of their knickers.

  True, relieving the rich, the stupid and the credulous—and Madam Andreyeva, Skobelev’s sister, had managed, miraculously, to be all three—of their wealth didn’t make for a pleasant way of earning a living, and true, Vanka had very few friends, but when it came to a choice between friendship and a full stomach he always came down on the side of dinner.

  But still Vanka hesitated before replying. In truth he was beset by something of a dilemma. On the one hand he was so desperate for money that the prospect of holding a few séances for Burlesque to help refill his coffers was mightily appealing. On the other, the one place General Skobelev and his thugs were sure to be looking for him was at séances.

  But without blood he was a dead man.

  “You’re correct, Burlesque,” he said in a low, conspiratorial voice, “I am a Licensed Psychic and Occultist.” He leaned as close to Burlesque as the man’s novel ideas about hygiene would allow. “I have studied at the feet of a master who taught me the mysteries of Russian cosmology and now, as an adept, I am able to connect with the esoteric forces that tie the past with the present and the present with the future. But more: I am able to link the living with the dead.”

  “Blimey,” gasped Burlesque.

  “Gor,” said Sporting, and with a shaking hand she drained her glass of 5 percent Solution or, more accurately as this was the Pig they were sitting in, her glass of 2.5 percent Solution.

  “So, wot you is saying, Wanker,” began Burlesque as he wiped a terminally filthy handkerchief across his flaccid mouth, “is that yous can speak wiv the dead?”

  “Certainly,” said Vanka emphatically, “but you must realize that séances are difficult and expensive to run.”

  As was his wont, Burlesque skipped over the word “difficult” and homed in on “expensive.” “ ’Ow expensive?”

  “Let’s say ten guineas a session.”

  “Let’s say something a damn sight less bleedin’ expensive.”

  “No . . . it’s ten guineas or nothing. I am sorry, Burlesque, but that is my price. You have no idea the amount of mental anguish conducting a séance entails.”

  “Yessen I does,” protested Burlesque. “It’s abart the same as the mental anguish I experience when I ’ave to part wiv ten guineas ov my ’ard-earned loot. ’Ow about we say five guineas a show for the first week, then let’s see how it goes.”

  “Okay . . . eight guineas for the first week and then ten thereafter.”

  Burlesque thought for a minute, but Vanka knew he would agree. No Licensed Psychic worth his salt would perform for less than ten guineas, so Burlesque knew he’d gotten a good deal.

  “Done,” he said at last, spitting on his hand and offering it to shake. Vanka looked at it with contempt; even from across the table he could smell whatever it was that Burlesque had been chewing and the last thing he wanted was to come into physical contact with it. In his opinion anything that came out of Burlesque’s mouth was a biological hazard. The only way he’d shake the man’s hand was if he was wearing a reinforced leather gauntlet.

  “Never mind the handshake, Burlesque, there’s one small problem.”

  Burlesque scowled; he wasn’t a great fan of “problems.”

  “As I’m performing in the Rookeries, I want to use an Anglo name.” Perform as “Vanka Maykov: Psychic” and he would become, in very short order, “Vanka Maykov: Dickless Psychic.”

  “That’s fine wiv me, Wanker.”

  “And I need an assistant to help me commune with the Spirit World. I need a PsyChick. The girl I normally use, Svetlana, is nursing a sick relative in St. Pete’s.” Or more probably, if General Skobelev had found her, she was nursing part of the foundations propping up the new railway bridge the ForthRight had just built over the Rhine. “I need to hire a new girl.”

  “There’s always Sportin’ ’ere,” suggested Burlesque. “I bet she’s a natural PsyChick, wot wiv the amount ov spirits that ’ave manifested themselves in ’er. An’ she’s always very willin’.”

  Vanka gave Sporting a quick look; if ever there was a girl who could confidently be described as “willing” it was Sporting.

  “I need a girl that can read.”

  “I can read,” said Sporting hopefully.

  “I mean something other than your name.”

  “Oh.”

  Burlesque took a huge drag on his cigar and then pushed the bowler hat that was permanently planted on top of his grease-drenched hair back on his head. His nasty little eyes settled on Vanka and for a moment he was reminded of just what a vicious bastard Burlesque really was.

  Be careful, Vanka, be very careful.

  “I’ve gotta idea, Wanker. I’m ’aving an audition this evening. I’m looking for a chirp, see, a new singer—someone classy. I’m looking for a jad singer . . . a Shade jad singer. Why don’t cha stick around, Wanker, an’ see ’oo turns up. Maybe you’ll find a PsyChick amongst that lot.”

  Vanka sighed. He knew the sort of girls who came to auditions at the Pig: most of them had been around the block so many times they could only walk in right angles.

  But Vanka needed a PsyChick. To pull off a séance he would need an assistant of such mesmerizing loveliness that the men in the audience wouldn’t be able to keep their eyes off her. All good psychics knew that a pretty girl wearing not much more than a big smile was the ideal way to distract an audience’s attention, and distraction was the psychic’s most powerful weapon. But there was more to it than that. The girl—mentally Vanka emphasized the word “girl”; she had to be young—also had to be intelligent enough to help Vanka work his tricks and, most importantly, be so terminally naïve that she didn’t realize that if they were caught running a bent séance they would both be for the high jump.

  Not a chance . . . but then hope springs eternal.

  ELLA TOOK A LEFT DOWN BOTTOMLEY ROAD, THANKFUL THAT IT WAS quieter here and that there were fewer people jostling her. With the noise of Sidney Street reduced to a background grumble, she took a moment to gather herself. The Prancing Pig was easy to spot at the end of the road; it was an oasis of light in the thickening gloom. But though it was well lit, judging from the expression on the face of the urchin s
wathed in an old army coat several sizes too big for him who was guarding the entrance, it wasn’t very welcoming. Crouched in the pub’s doorway out of the winter wind, the boy looked about ten years old and was, rather incongruously, puffing on a pipe.

  He glared out at Ella from under his tatty chapka as she tried the door and then spat into the gutter. “Yous one ov them singing tarts?”

  “I’ve come to audition,” said Ella, tapping a finger against the soiled notice pinned to the door, “if that’s what you mean.”

  “Don’t get shirty wiv me, luv,” admonished the boy with an angry puff on his pipe. “Sos yous sing jad, right?”

  Ella referenced PINC. Jad was the swing music popular in the JAD—the nuJu Autonomous District of NoirVille—and it was widely thought in the Demi-Monde that only Shades could sing jad in anything approaching an authentic manner.

  “Yeah, I’m a jad singer.”

  “Burlesque ’as left me ’ere to tell yous chirps that yous is to go round to the back room.” He nodded down an alleyway that flanked the Pig.

  She flipped the boy a penny for his advice and trudged down the dark alley. Twenty yards along she came to a pair of red doors. Ella had never been in a real—well, as real as anything could be in the Demi-Monde—English pub before and she was taken aback by the concoction of smells she was subject to: the sweet stench of rancid sweat, the tart aroma of spilled Solution and the undercurrent of damp and decay. And if her nose took a moment to adjust to the Pig so too did her eyes. She had to squint against the glare of the dozens of gaslights that illuminated the place, the light reflected, in turn, by the huge mirrors that decorated the walls.

  As it was early in the evening there were only about thirty or forty people in the pub. Most of the clientele seemed to be workmen enjoying an after-work pint and taking the opportunity to chat up the somewhat flyblown girl idly polishing glasses behind the bar. There was also a circle of five or six heavily made-up women in rather risqué costumes drinking Solution—pinkies held out from the glass in an imitation of refined behavior—around a table on the far side of the room. A trio of musicians were setting up on the low stage to the front of the bar.

  When she walked in every eye in the room turned in her direction.

  A quick reference to PINC told Ella that Burlesque Bandstand was the fat and scruffily dressed man seated at the table near the stage. He had a rather too well-endowed blond girl—a floozy called Sporting Chance—by his side and a long-haired man sitting across from him. Long-haired or not, unfortunately—and worryingly—PINC couldn’t tell her anything about him. He was a mystery: a tall, lean mystery with a big bruise on the side of his face. Despite the bruise she thought Mr. Mystery to be rather good-looking and she liked the careless way he had draped himself over his chair; the word that came to Ella’s mind to describe him was “louche,” closely followed by “rascal.”

  She strode across the sawdust-strewn floor of the pub and presented herself at the booth.

  “Excuse me, sir, but would I be correct in thinking that I am addressing Mr. Burlesque Bandstand?”

  Chapter 15

  The Demi-Monde: 40th Day of Winter, 1004

  nuJuism is the religion practiced by the Demi-Monde’s Sectorless nuJu community. nuJuism is an unrelentingly pessimistic religion which teaches that suffering and hardship is life-affirming and necessary to prepare nuJus for the rigors to be experienced during the Time of Tribulation (a.k.a. the End of Days). It is a central tenet of nuJuism that there will arise a Messiah who will lead the nuJu people safely through Tribulation and to the Promised Land. As with everything to do with the nuJus this is, of course, pernicious nonsense.

  —RELIGIONS OF THE DEMI-MONDE, OTTO WEININGER, UNIVERSITY OF BERLIN PUBLICATIONS

  Vanka looked up. It was difficult to see the girl who was addressing Burlesque as she had a light directly behind her and she was wearing a veil. All he could make out was a silhouette. It was a very nice silhouette though, without any of the usual humps and bumps that were de rigueur for women who frequented the Pig. From what he could see, the woman—girl!—was everything he had ever dreamed of in an assistant. Okay, she was a bit scrawny, but still . . .

  He shuffled his chair around to get a better look, hoping, as he did so, that she didn’t have a beard. He held his breath as she pulled back the veil that so completely covered her face. She didn’t have a beard. She was quite lovely. Young, slim and lovely: perfect.

  Except that she was black. Well, not black exactly; she was a wonderful light caramel color. But there was no denying she was a Shade and this was the Rookeries.

  And if any of Archie Clement’s SS thugs ever saw her, there would be Hel to pay: Shades weren’t popular with the SS, who were liable to deal with them pretty viciously. As far as they saw it the ForthRight was a Shade-free zone and they would fight to keep it that way. But as a PsyChick the girl would be perfect. Even her color would be useful: it’d bring a touch of the exotic to the proceedings. He could bill her as a WhoDoo mambo. It’d hide the bruising too, if the SS ever caught up with her.

  Burlesque didn’t seem to notice the girl’s skin color; in fact as Vanka remembered it he had specifically wanted a Shade singer. The punters liked Shade birds; they were sexier than the fat Anglo items Burlesque usually employed. In fact this girl was so sexy that even Burlesque was persuaded to be pleasant. “Good evening, m’dear,” he crooned as his eyes made a professional inventory of the girl’s body. “I am indeed Burlesque Bandstand: purveyor of alcoholic beverages an’ fine victuals, an’ impresario extraordinaire. An’ to ’oo do I ’ave the pleasure of introducing myself?” Burlesque used a boot to shove a chair out from under the table and gestured the girl into it. She sat down and now, illuminated by the candle that sputtered in the middle of the table, Vanka could see her better.

  She wasn’t lovely.

  She was more than lovely. She was beautiful and very, very clean. He couldn’t remember when he had seen anybody that clean before or who smelled so . . . nice. The bouquet of violets and strawberries that shrouded the girl reminded him of days in the park and walks in the woods, which was remarkable because, as far as he could remember, he had never been in a park nor had he ever walked in a wood. She was so clean that he had to resist the urge to stretch out a hand and touch her shimmering black hair. The girl smiled—revealing the whitest teeth he had ever seen—and thrust out a slim, elegant hand in the direction of Burlesque, each finger adorned by a beautifully manicured and varnished nail.

  Burlesque looked at the hand in bemusement and then, reluctantly, took the girl’s fingertips in his own mitt and gave the hand a cautious shake. Vanka could understand Burlesque’s trepidation: when people shoved a hand in your direction in the Rookeries it was usually wrapped around the handle of a knife.

  “My name’s Ella Thomas,” the girl said softly.

  “An’ I’m Sportin’ Chance,” said Burlesque’s girlfriend, sticking out a hand whilst simultaneously giving her beau a filthy look. Sporting obviously wasn’t keen on competition, especially good-looking competition.

  “Delighted to meet you, Miss Chance.”

  “An’ I’m delighted to meet yous, Miss Thomas,” interrupted Burlesque. “An’ this is my mate, Wanker.”

  “Colonel Vanka Ivanovich Maykov: Licensed Occultist,” Vanka corrected as he took the girl’s hand and shook it. He cursed himself as he did so; he had been so smitten by her beauty that he had forgotten to use an alias, and for all he knew she could be an agent of Skobelev. But gazing into those wonderful limpid eyes, he didn’t think so; no one so lovely could be so venal. As he shook the girl’s hand his cold-reading techniques came into play. Her skin was so soft that he knew she’d never done a decent day’s work in her life; she was either a gentlewoman fallen on hard times or an expensive hooker. Unfortunately his instincts told him to put his money on her being the former.

  Shame.

  “ ’Ow may I ’elp you, Miss Thomas?” smarmed Burlesque.

  �
�I’ve come to audition as a jad singer.” The girl’s voice tinkled like a bell through the room.

  “A jad singer?” Burlesque almost choked.

  A frown creased the girl’s perfect forehead. “Yes, you have a notice on the door of your pub. It says you’re looking for a chirp . . . a jad singer. I understand the auditions are being held here.”

  “Well, forgive my surprise but yous don’t look much like a jad singer. They tend to be bigger than wot yous is.”

  The girl smiled her wonderful smile. “Well, I guess I’m one of the new generation of less-big jad singers.” She thought for a moment. “People tell me, Mr. Bandstand, that I’ve got a good voice and I can sing just about anything, so why don’t you try me out?”

  Burlesque eyed the girl sidelong. He was probably, Vanka thought, trying to establish if the girl’s suggestion that he “try her out” was a double entendre. Disappointment flared on the impresario’s face; he’d obviously decided it wasn’t.

  “D’you dance?” Burlesque asked suspiciously.

  “Sure, I can dance.”

  Sure?

  From the moment she had opened her mouth Vanka had known she was just too good to be true. There was definitely something of the Yank about her, and Yanks, as everybody knew, were too independently minded to be reliable. Most of the bastards were Royalists too.

  Her being a Yank would definitely be a problem: Burlesque didn’t like Yanks. But Vanka had never heard of a Shade Yank before. Maybe Burlesque didn’t like Shade Yanks. But then Burlesque didn’t like anybody, be they Anglos, Slavs, nuJus, Shades, Polacks, Krauts, Russkis, Frogs, Eyeties, Wogs, Chinks or Nips. Burlesque was an equal-opportunity racist. He was probably wondering if the girl might be an undercover agent working for Shaka . . . or, worse, a Suffer-O-Gette assassin.

  Burlesque continued his interrogation. “You tell jokes?”

  A moment’s consideration. “I guess I could.”

  “Right, let’s see you outta that shooba,” said Burlesque, nodding toward the girl’s thick fur coat.